Tony Cocchia of Norwalk shows the hand gesture he made when he gave Tiger Woods the Italian Evil Eye -- the 'Maloik' -- after Woods wouldn't sign a hat for him a few years ago at the Buick Classic at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y. Cocchia told Woods he would never win another major tournament and threw the curse at him as he walked away.

Tony Cocchia shows how to fold the fingers in and extend the others as he did when he gave Tiger Woods the Italian Evil Eye, the 'Maloik', after Woods wouldn't sign a hat for him a decade ago at the Buick Classic at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y. Cocchia told him he would never win another major tournament and threw the curse at him as he walked away.

George Albano column: Take that, Tiger! Once spurned by Woods, Norwalk man delivers hex on golfer

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Another major championship in golf has come and gone and the drought for Tiger Woods continues.

Drought? Tiger's recent struggles on the golf course lately have been more like the Sahara Desert in July.

Indeed, after last weekend's dreadful performance at the PGA Championship, it has now been more than seven years since Eldrick Tont Woods has won a major championship.

He used to collect them the way some people collect baseball cards. Woods turned professional in the summer of 1996 at the age of 20 and won his first major less than a year later in the spring of '97. The Masters, no less, and by a record 12 strokes.

Over the next 11 years he would reel off another 13, and with those 14 major championships in his back pocket by the time he was 32, Tiger seemed a cinch to eclipse the all-time record of 18 held by his mentor Jack Nicklaus.

At least that was the general consensus back in June of 2008 when he won the U.S. Open. He seemed invincible, unbeatable, and, to some, indestructible.

But Tiger Woods hasn't been back to the winner's circle at a major since. Oh, sure, he's had his moments where he's shown flashes of his old self, been near the top of the leaderboard after two or three rounds. But that trademark red shirt he wears on Sundays hasn't been the good luck charm the last seven years it once was.

And that's if he makes it to a Sunday. Last week, for example, he missed the cut, the third straight major he's done so. That's how far south things have gone for Woods.

So what exactly happened to one of the most successful golfers of all-time? What's gone wrong for the 11-time PGA Player of the Year? Where did it all turn bad for this once-dominant force ranked No. 1 in the world for over 600 weeks in his career?

Tony Cocchia of Norwalk insists he knows the reason for Tiger's woes. He says it's because of him. Or, more specifically, it's because of an Italian curse he put on Tiger several years ago.

You see, Cocchia, a golfer himself and a big fan of the sport, once came face to face with Tiger at the Westchester Country Club in nearby Harrison, N.Y. But when one of the highest paid athletes in the world refused to give him an autograph, Cocchia gave Tiger the "Maloik."

The what?

The 'Maloik,' which is short for 'Malocchio,' which is Italian for the 'Evil Eye.' For those not familiar with Italian culture rituals, let me explain.

Part superstition, part tradition, it is the belief in the evil eye, which, when placed on someone, will manifest itself into some sort of misfortune or bad luck onto the cursed person. In this case, Tiger Woods.

But the irony in all this is the fact that Cocchia--at least at one time--was a fan of Tiger.

"I did like the kid when he was first coming up," the 68-year-old lifelong Norwalker, known to many in town as 'TC', said the other day. "He was dominant, he brought a lot of attention to the sport, and he got more youngsters to play golf. That's what I liked about him."

So much so that he wanted his autograph on that particular Sunday morning at the Westchester CC.

"I used to be a member of this PGA Partners Club, which anyone can join," Cocchia said. "So I had a membership for like five years and one of the benefits was you were able to purchase tickets to any event. We used to go to Westchester because it was the closest.

"We would go to the Buick Classic on Championship Sunday every year and get there really early to watch the golfers practice on the putting green. Then we would follow one of the early twosomes all the way around the course, and after they were done we'd watch the leaders tee off.

"Then we would take off and go back home and watch the rest of the tournament on TV."

Cocchia would always bring this favorite golf hat of his and politely ask PGA golfers as they got done on the putting green to sign it. Many of them gladly obliged. He still has the hat, too, and it's covered with autographs.

"I got quite a few names on it," he said. "I might have 15 or 20 names on that hat, something like that."

But there is one name conspicuously missing.

"I had no idea Tiger was even going to be there that morning. I just went to the putting green like I always do and there he was," Cocchia recalled. "I remember it was 10 after eight in the morning when he got done putting and I waited for him to come off the green. When he did, I went up to him and said, 'Excuse me, Mr. Woods, can you sign my hat?' He's a big guy, 6-4, maybe 6-5, and I'm only about 5-6. So he looks down at me and says, 'Don't bother me. I don't have time for you.'

"A lot of people I've talked to and told this story to said they had a similar incident when they asked him for an autograph. Apparently he doesn't like the public, the people who pay his salary."

Unlike all those people, however, Cocchia wasn't going to take Woods' smugness lying down. Instead, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Actually, into one hand.

"As he walked away, I said 'Mr. Woods.' He turned around and I said, 'I hope you never win another major,' and then I gave him the 'Maloik.' "

The hand gesture he's talking about is the sign of the horns, formed by extending the index and little fingers while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb.

He then demonstrated how he put the curse on Woods, bringing his bent right arm back and then, in an underhand motion, extending it forward with the sign of the horns. He even let out a little grunt at the end, just as he did when he put the hex on the one-time No. 1 golfer in the world.

And Tiger's reaction?

"He just kept walking," Cocchia said. "He looked at me like 'Who is this idiot?' But he remembers that guy now."

So does at least one other PGA golfer who came off the putting green shortly after Woods.

"I can't remember who the heck it was," Cocchia said. "But when this one guy came off and I asked him, 'Can you sign my hat,' he immediately said, 'Yea, I don't want the horns.' "

Cocchia can't remember exactly what year it was or who even won the tournament that day.

"It could've been Tiger for all I know. I can't remember it was so long ago."

To Cocchia's chagrin, Woods actually did win a few more majors after that day, even after being cursed with the Maloik.

"At first, I said 'Eh, I guess it didn't work,' " Cocchia said.

But in late 2009, Woods' life, on and off the golf course, began to unravel. First, it was his well-documented late-night fight with his wife that ended with him crashing his SUV and her smashing the rear window with a golf club. As a result, he took a five-month leave from professional golf. Soon after, his many extramarital indiscretions were revealed, which led to his eventual divorce.

Woods' ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011 and he went 107 weeks without winning a tournament of any kind.

"It just took a while," Cocchia said of the curse he put on Woods. "It took a couple of months to take effect. Then it all fell in place. It all went bad."

To his credit, Woods did regain the No. 1 ranking in March 2013 after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational and held the top spot as recently as May 2014.

"Winning regular tournaments don't bother me," Cocchia said. "But no majors. He hasn't won a major in seven years. So now the 'Maloik' really works.

"Everybody busts my chops. They say, 'Tony, what (the heck) did you do to Tiger."

But that doesn't bother 'TC' one bit. In fact, he rather enjoys sitting in front of the TV and watching Tiger struggle in majors.

"Oh, yea," he says. "Oh, yes I do."

Of course, lately Cocchia has had much to rejoice about. At the end of March, Woods's ranking had dropped to 104, the first time he had been outside the top 100 since the week before his first Tour title in 1996.

And after last week's early exit at the PGA Championship, he fell all the way down to 255. Ouch!

As he nears his 40th birthday, and only 16 months removed from back disc surgery, the future doesn't look promising, curse or no curse.

Even when Woods has shown glimpses of regaining his ol' form, however briefly, it's not enough to overcome the Maloik.

"We were watching some golf tournament on TV down at the Laurels a few weeks ago and Tiger played well the first two rounds. He was like only three shots off the lead," Cocchia said. "Chris Ippolito yelled over, 'Hey, Tony, Tiger's going good.' I said, 'Yea, but there's still Saturday and Sunday,' and sure enough he shot a 73 and 75 the last two rounds."

It didn't matter it wasn't a major. You could still hear the satisfaction in Cocchia's voice.

"Sorry, I can't root for him any more."

And he has no intentions of taking the hex off Woods.

"That's the thing. I can't take it off even if I wanted to," he said. "You can only take it off at Christmas time and it's usually done by a family member. There's a whole routine to it."

According to Italian folklore, there are a few ways to remove the curse. One is to wear a single horn, known as a "comuto," around your neck which supposedly wards it off.

Another ancient ritual to dispel the evil eye is to insert the tip of a needle into the eye of another needle, while reciting some Italian rhetoric, and then dropping the needles on top of three drops of olive oil in water and sprinkle three pinches of salt into the water.

Are you getting all this?

The final step is to jab scissors into the water through the oil three times and cut the air above the bowl three times. Once completed--poof!--the spell is gone.

Maybe Tiger Woods should look into this before his next major.

Meanwhile, Tony Cocchia doesn't have to worry about any such curses.

"I play golf once a week, basically at Oak Hills," he said Thursday afternoon at the Laurel Athletic Club shortly after getting off the course. "I first started playing golf in 1990."

Long before he picked up a club, though, softball was his sport of choice.

"The first team I played for goes back to 1965 with Beldoch Popper," he noted. "Then I played for the Laurels (where he's been a member for 48 years), then A.F. Conte, then back to the Laurels, and then I played for the Aces the last 20-some odd years of my career. I stopped playing in '06."

But he has no plans to stop playing golf anytime soon. Or watching it, for that matter.

And Tony Cocchia even takes a little pride in the fact that he may have had--or believes he had--something to do with changing the course of golf history.

That is, he and the 'Maloik.'

"Thank you very much," he said with a grin. "I'm the man who took Tiger down."